But what if we aren’t alone?

yea yea, ok.

Too long for email yet again, pretty please open this in substack and read it in full?

Dear Reader, this is something of a part II to an old article, “Alone”. You may have spotted me posting that article in reply to the recent UFO obsessions in US media. (Also, I refuse to use UAP as this seems needlessly confusing for established terminologies.) I’ve received quite some feedback and complaint, and one of the best responses was “Why don’t you use your big brain to imagine how aliens could exist instead of why they don’t.” Good point, Anon. So I have decided to write this part II on just that topic, taking a crack at reverse-engineering a thesis on how aliens do exist. However, to remind you, I most certainly do not believe they do. If you missed my reasons why, here’s a link to Part I:

Alone

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Reality

Dear Reader, I wish to explore this premise by means of a survey of threads which appear to be grounded in reality. I should also mention, I am very much so biased! So asking me to do this is going to come with some caveats. Namely, no magic. By that I mean all speculation must obey known physics and laws and be grounded in events that are recorded and researched. (For the sake of openess, I’ve had an account at Above Top Secret since 2006 - meaning I’ve quite literally spent half my life arguing aliens are not real.) I’m going to outright dismiss most hear-say claims and conspiracy theories and focus on what has both scientific and government backing.

That isn’t to say I don’t have an open mind. I’ve seen and recorded quite a few UFOs myself. I’m fairly certain I saw one when I was a toddler that spurred the interest. It was a large disc-shaped object that cast a shadow on the clouds above it as it hovered. Let’s say it was about the size of your thumb if you hold it out. However, by and large I believe this phenomenon is natural - likely ball lightning. I’ve used electromagnetic sensors to actually predict when and where they will form and have taken a few photos of them when they do predictably show up.

Just to show two from my collection:

Documented 2012, long exposure photography indicating ultra-fast blinking.

Documented 2022, video shows a ball-lightning type going back and forth behind a cloud multiple times, after a storm. Full-screen it if it’s hard to see the small speck.

In one hot summer night, I even managed to track the x37b during a series of turning maneuvers, but that video is mislocated somewhere. In any case, I am not against the idea of UFOs being a real and documented phenomenon, having recorded them myself. I simply doubt they are aliens.

But, this article is on the presumption they are real - thus we must seek out a reliable basis with which to explore from. To these ends, I’ve suggest three primary candidates to discuss:

1. The claims of David Grusch

2. The interstellar object known as ‘Oumuamua

3. The anomalies of Tabby’s Star

If you have any other promising cases to pursue, leave a comment and I will edit this to include it, if it is worth it.

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David Grusch

Why not start with a review of the claims of David Grusch? He’s the recent whistleblower of supposed US-E.T. relations. He’s the reason aliens are in the news, Dear Reader - did you hear? You certainly must have by now. US intelligence officer David Grusch claims aliens are real, and we have their craft. Ordinarily, such things would be cast to the crackpot bin. However, these are extraordinary times! Congress has decided to take these claims seriously, and has ordered an oversight hearing with the Pentagon. So we should, in all honesty, not be too hasty to dismiss him.

There are, to be clear, quite a few reasons to consider his claims. First and foremost, if Congress finds Mr Grusch lied he faces jail time. You probably haven’t heard about that, Dear Reader. Secondly, Mr Grusch is a GS-15 level. He was making something in the $100k-$150k range of money. He is giving up a helluva lot if he’s lying. Thirdly, you should be aware that Mr Grusch has higher security clearance than most of congress. This point is rather overlooked by the news. He quite literally knows more about congress’ dirty laundry than they do about each other. These are important credentials that give Mr Grusch at least some authority on matters.

Before we go further, let me produce a general timeline and outline of Mr Grusch

• 2017: A person involved in clandestine operations reached out to Mr Grusch with extensive documents on the topic.

• Mr Grusch spent Four Years following up with named individuals and collecting information about those involved.

• July 2021: Mr Grusch files a report to Sean O'Donnell, Inspector General of the Department of Defense (Currently now the IG of the EPA). This complaint alleges that members of the US government have been concealing information from Congress on the topic of extraterrestrial craft and beings. He asks his Identity be withheld from the complaint.

• Later in 2021: Mr Grusch believes his identity is shared with some members of the government, but he does not believe this was a mishandlement.

• 2021-2022: As a result of this unexpected sharing of his identity, Mr Grusch receives several reprimands from his superiors. In order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, Mr Grusch refuses to say which superiors.

• July 2022: IG Sean O'Donnell concludes his investigation and finds the complaint CREDIBLE AND URGENT.

• Late 2022:As a result of the IG’s findings, an automatic alert is sent to Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines; the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence head by Mark Warner & Marco Rubio; and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence head by Adam Schiff & Mike Turner. This complaint was signed by Mr Grusch with the title: I do solemnly affirm under the penalties of perjury that the contents of the foregoing paper are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

• December 2022: As the investigation goes on, Mr Grusch helps congress draft the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.

• June 5, 2023: Now protected by law, Mr Grusch comes public with his complaint and findings.

• June 8, 2023: Congress announces oversight hearings planned on the matter

If you haven’t caught on, Dear Reader, it appears Mr Grusch is something of a congressional mole. I cannot think of another time when Congress consulted with a whistleblower on how to protect him before he goes public. Can you? This smells fishy, but this article is operating on the assumption that aliens are real, so let’s role with that. Let’s assume Congress really is concerned with what the pentagon has been hiding from them.

Well, there’s some issues if we go with Mr Grusch. First of all, he speculates a helluva lot. He speculates on secret deals between aliens and the US government. He speculates on murdered individuals, he speculates on interdimensional - he speculates far too much. On the claims of Mr Grusch, if we kick out all his speculation, here’s what we are left with:

1. ~1930s: One of the first documented UFOs shot down was by Mussolini’s government. The Vatican supposedly informed the Americans of the craft. The craft was taken by the Americans after the war.

2. 1947: Roswell was an actual downed craft.

3. 1967: 10 ICBMs are deactivated by a UFO.

4. Cold War: Russia has downed craft too, US and USSR aggreged to never assume UFOs are the other side to reduce risk of nuclear exchange.

5. Craft are primarily brought down by tricking them into crashing or landing.

6. Initial deaths involved with materials. Craft are radioactive.

So that’s two downed craft, and a library of artifacts. That’s not a whole lot to go off of. But that’s a decent survey.

Of course, bare in mind what Congress is investigating is not if aliens are real or not, but if something was hidden from Congress. So, when those hearings happen, bare that in mind. With that, let’s move down our survey list.

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‘Oumuamua

Most of you likely followed this story when it was waved around by Harvard’s Avi Loeb as proof of aliens. Let me be frank about Avi Loeb: He’s got an inflated ego. The vast majority of his claimed publications are little more than a contributing introductory essay for the research of other men. Do not concern yourself with Avi Loeb right now. Rather, let’s take a look at ‘Oumuamua.

Jason Arias/Quanta Magazine

‘Oumuamua was, as best as we can tell, either a disc or a cigar shaped celestial body. This is because its light curve - a measurement of how bright the object was - showed a bouncing wave. This happens when objects of a non-sphere shape rotate and give off more light from the angles that have more visible surfaced area, like so:

However, it is difficult to say which shape it was. It could have been a giant croissant for all we know. The light curve only indicates that it was non-spherical. The above is also an ideal representation. The light curve’s actual plot was this:

Also, because ‘Oumuamua was too far away to get a descent snapshot, the best we have is this:

Now, to bring us back to reality, ‘Oumuamua is not unique in this shape. The asteroid 2003 SD220 has a similar profile, and is slow and close enough to photograph:

So why did ‘Oumuamua get so much attention? Well first, it was the first confirmed object from outside the solar system, so that was cool. But second, as it entered the solar system, it accelerated. Things, of course, always accelerate due to gravity. You’ve probably heard of gravity-assisted acceleration: burning fuel as you fall towards something so that you miss it and save fuel than if you had burned without falling. That neat trick is how the Voyager Probe escaped the solar system.

Specifically, ‘Oumuamua was observed to be accelerating at 5.01 micrometers per second squared in non-gravitational acceleration. Now, that isn’t a lot. By comparison, our own ion thruster tech can achieve 100x this speed. Both, however, are incredibly tiny accelerations compared to nuclear or chemical power we launch rockets on, which can achieve accelerations in the 90 m/s^2 range. In simple terms, that’s 14 million times more power. So you might wonder, why would anyone ever bother with Ion or even lower-than-Ion drives? That is simple. A chemical rocket will only fire for a few minutes and then run out. An Ion drive can fire for years. In the world of space travel, that’s better. An Ion drive firing micrometers of acceleration for years can get to light speed in that interval, whereas a chemical rocket can never get that far. Of course, you need a chemical rocket to exceed Earth’s gravity initially. But once you’re in orbit, that micrometer propulsion is perfectly fine - if it’s a ship…

There is a rather short list of objects than can accelerate like ‘Oumuamua did. Other than the man-made thrusters on our spacecraft, the only known natural sources of acceleration are geysers that burst from comets as they warm up approaching a star, and the momentum of photons hitting an object in a vacuum. However, such geysers emit a comet “tail”, and asteroids tend to be too massive to get a noticeable nudge from solar radiation. ‘Oumuamua emitted no such tail, and if one does a calculation on how dense ‘Oumuamua has to be to accelerate 5.01 micrometers per second squared of solar pressure, the object would have to be 1/1000th the density of your average solar system asteroid. In other words, practically hollow - something a spacecraft with occupiable rooms would fit the bill for quite well.

(Much of this information stems from a paper titled Non-Gravitational Acceleration in the Trajectory of ʻOumuamua. Note here, the lack of tail compared to a theoretical model at the bottom.)

If it's a ship, that cigar/disc shape suddenly makes sense as a means to accomplish this acceleration: A solar sail - an object with a large enough surface area that light’s momentum can push it.

The curious part about this is that it would be very difficult to tell a solar sail apart from a disc or cigar shaped rock from the distances we were working with - if we were using light curves alone. Both would show the same light curve. But the acceleration gives it away as something more than rock - or rather, less, given its ultra-low density. Something light and synthetic like a solar sail would accelerate quite nicely, while a large rock disk or cigar would have too much mass to accelerate very much from the nudge of small photons.

Of course, ‘Oumuamua was tumbling. Not very practical for a solar sail. Some have speculated if it was a solar sail, it was malfunctioning. The question of ‘Oumuamua remains open to speculation, you see. For the next decade or so, we will still have the opportunity to catch up with a fast probe to snap some shots, should we desire.

Incidentally, a few years before ‘Oumuamua passed near the earth, CNEOS 2014-01-08 crashed into the Earth. Avi Loeb, who I once again remind you is an egotistical nutter at times, called up his connections with the US government to evaluate the trajectory and nudge them to declare it was an interstellar object as well:

This was done so Avi could claim to be the first person to discover an Interstellar visiting body. Avi also claims this object was an alien probe as well. Rumor is he’s trying to claim it, or another candidate meteor, came from ‘Oumuamua. However, this makes little sense as this meteor originate from different areas of the sky, and the other doesn’t have much data on where it came from.

There are, to be clear, some curious facts about this meteor too. Avi claims, in a publication, that the meteor showed a density 20x that of silica meteors, and 2x that of iron meteors, making it an exotic material whether or not it is aliens.

He has now spent the past few years organizing an expedition to recover fragments of it from the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and as of this year (2023), the expedition has launched:

Already, Avi claims to have found curious artifacts at the bottom of the ocean where the meteor is thought to have crashed, including a “nonmagnetic metallic hair” made of manganese and platinum, which Avi claims to not share characteristics with human-made wires.

Avi keeps a daily blog of his expedition, which you can follow here:

Avi Loeb's blog

I have also heard from the grape vine that Avi is interested in the aforementioned second meteor crash off the coast of Portugal, which hit while ‘Oumuamua was passing by. It showed similar properties, and Avi believes it very well may have come from ‘Oumuamua itself. He is already planning a second expedition, likely scheduled later this year or next.

I have to be honest with you, Dear Reader. Although I do not like Avi because of his egotism, he has proven right on his hunches more than a random chance’s worth. I stand with an open mind, willing to hear him out on what he finds.

But on that, let’s move on with our survey.

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Tabby’s Star

KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian's Star and WTF Star, and most commonly Tabby’s Star, is a curious star which has been dipping in brightness recently. Chances are, you have heard of it in the news like the previous examples - no doubt from Avi Loeb rushing to be the first to discover literally anything related to the topic. The reported dip in brightness was as high as 20%. Such an obstruction would far exceed the size of any known planetary model, and thus it was speculated to be some kind of megastructure orbiting the star. Further evidence came when it was realized that over the course of the past century, this dimming effect appeared to be regular, and growing - suggesting a fixed orbital object growing in size. If it was artificial, it was still under construction…

At 1400 light years, it wouldn’t be impossible to catch a signal from anything powerful enough in the region. Granted, it would only be able to pick up large bursts sent out on purpose. You can imagine a swarm of solar harvesters orbiting the star might use such bursts to self-organize in some way. Their overall bursts might amplify each other and send out a radio flare. Such attempts to listen in have proven meh at best.

At my home, I have a crudely built radio telescope - because, of course I do - and when I point it in the general direction of Tabby’s Star in Cygnus, I do get a few curious bips and bops along the Hydrogen Line

Theoretically, these blips could be some kind of radio flare for activities in the region of the star, but I doubt my scrap yard radio telescope could actually pick it up. It’s probably just some bubble of excited hydrogen in our atmosphere that I found.

None the less, there are reasons to think Tabby’s Star is something. For one, the dips indicate something growing in size without change to density. If it was dust, we might expect the dips to gradually decrease over time as the dust spreads out. But what shows up in Tabby’s star is a growing obscurity. A something.

News outlets have primarily reported on the 1%-2% dips in the star’s brightness which, while quite a lot, would be typically consistent with a very large gas planet. As these dips occur in a range of 2 weeks to 2 months, it’s possible these are multiple very large gas planets near the star’s roche limit - that being the closest an orbit can be before a planet begins breaking up from tidal forces. Although, given such a short rotation period, one struggles to ponder the speed with which these bodies orbit. Mercury, our closest planet to the sun, orbits the Sun every 88 days. These bodies would be going around Tabby a womping 200x faster. The objects are not at Tabby’s roche limit, however, but they certainly would be cooked well done.

Those dips continue to be monitored every year and continue to show up: They seem to be growing too, but these are not the main dip.

The claimed main dip of Tabby’s Star is at 20% light reduction, which is unfathomably huge. A planet that big would collapse into a star or brown dwarf, and indeed a brown dwarf has been spotted in the distance of the Tabby system, but not orbiting fast enough to cause this dip.

Now, reader, I have searched far and wide for the plot of the 20%-22% dip of Tabby’s star that’s claimed. I cannot find it. This appears to be an invention of scientifically illiterate journalists. What’s happening is that, over the course of observations for the past century or so, Tabby’s Star has overall dimmed by about 20%-22%. That means, over time, it is gradually getting dimmer. See image here:

This is in addition to the quick 2% dips happening regularly. Now, this would indeed be more-so evidence of an alien megastructure, as dust ought to fade out over time and the star return to its original brightness. This dimming seems permanent. There has also been some research into the colors being blocked by the minor dimming, but I have not found any color data on the main continual dim. This would be useful to have, in order to see what frequencies of light are being absorbed. So much as can be seen from the minor dims, they are just dust. The main continual dimming is not.

It’s perhaps noteworthy to mention that Tabby’s Star is not the only dimmer. In fact, they appear to be all coming from a similar area. When plotted by distance, they are mostly in a specific range of 1400-1600 Light Years (distances in parsec below):

Of course, we can simply dismiss this as being part of a local stellar nursery, and there’s going to be a lot of dust in said nursery. However, could it be an Interstellar empire colonizing stars? Maybe. It’s worth noting that if we look for stars with dimming similar to Tabby’s in our own neighborhood, there’s a family of them about 500 light years away, many in the opposite direction. I plotted these out in Blender below:

You probably know Betelgeuse in there is going to blow up soon, so it’s possible these dimming events are merely dying stars coughing up stellar blood as they go out. However, that would be quite different from the young stars dimming, further out. If we were to presume some kind of alien signatures, then we could argue we are in the backyard of a civilization that builds Dyson Megastructures. I will continue monitoring these stars at my home telescope, and let you know if I find anything interesting.

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Conclusions

What I present here are the best-fit candidates for actual alien life - if you really need to believe they exist. From these data points we can imagine an idea of their civilization - or indeed, civilizations. We see they have an ability to build large-scale megastructures around stars, but these megastructures are fundamentally no more advanced than anything we can build today. They also do not seem to have the ability to go faster than the speed of light, or even at light speed. They rely on long-term journeys with solar sails to navigate between stars. We might speculate the megastructures focus light to give a significant running boost to these sails as they leave. If these artifacts are indeed from alien constructs, then they do not use any magic unknown materials or energies. They use exactly what we use, but at a larger scale.

From these data points we can imagine this alien civilization isn’t actually that much more advanced than ourselves. They simply have been around long enough to do more with the technology we ourselves already possess. We might imagine our own civilizations could accomplish much the same if we were to develop some kind of swarming space probe that could convert asteroids and space dust into large constructs around out star. We wouldn’t even need to leave the planet. The entire process could be automated. Once we have a space robot that knows how to get energy and fuel on it’s own, we can go on with our lives as they build space infrastructure. In many ways, collecting does not show an unfathomably complex and advanced civilization, but rather one much like ourselves today.

There really is only one practical way to colonize space under these constraints. Rather than going out and conquering stars and planets for some grand empire, the civilization simply sends a ship with some embryos, develops them along the way, and plants members of their own species on another planets to establish an entirely independent civilization. Perhaps these colonies don’t even know where their homeworld is, or what their homeworld’s civilization is like. They may be entirely on their own in some kind of galactic insurance policy for their species if anything goes wrong at home. This might, incidentally, explain the strange gray naked alien stories. Would they even think they are aliens themselves?

Imagine, dear reader, you wake up on a ship with no memories of who you are, why you are where you are, or even where you came from. You don’t even have a language. You simply find yourself with a bunch of other creatures that look like you with no instruction given. You’d have to simply make do.

Such a model of colonization is more like the Greeks than the Spaniards. You simply pick a spot that looks good and make a new city state. Maybe you get some vague understanding of your home city based off art and stories, but in the case of space you may not even get that.

This model actually sounds somewhat believable, if indeed it is true.

However, Dear Reader, you already know I don’t believe in aliens. In fact I’d say there’s a greater chance such beings are humans that left earth in those vast 200,000 years of unwritten history before the present age. Or maybe they are the descendants of Enoch, who left the Earth in biblical traditions. Who knows. All this is my own speculation based off the data. However, I hope you enjoyed this presentation.

How would you interpret this data, Dear Reader? Can you make an overarching narrative that explains these various data points?

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Sources:

News Nation Interview

Wired Article on 'Oumuamua

Article on 'Oumuamua's scans

Article on Tabby Star dimming

Forbes Article on Light Sails

Nasa Article on 'Oumuamua

Paper on Stellar Dimmers